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Calais: stop imminent deportations to Sudan!

Calais Migrant Solidarity | 01.03.2012 16:43 | Anti-racism | Migration | Repression

France is deporting people to Sudan where ethnic cleansing and genocide continues.

On February 15th, the French government deported four people to Khartoum where people fear they will face imprisonment, torture and genocide.

A deportation of a fifth person from Darfur was attempted twice, on 14th and 21st February, but failed. This person is being held in detention and facing deportation to Khartoum again any day now.

This is a personal testimony from someone currently being detained in Coquelles detention centre, in Calais, soon to be deported to Khartoum:

“Everyone knows the situation in Sudan and especially Darfur, there are no rights for humans, so why are France deporting us? There are also no rights for us here in France, we are not treated as humans.

In Darfur, in 2003, 500 plus people were killed in one day; this was my village, Anka.

They destroyed our village, raped the women, put children in the fire. Like the devil. In this moment I wished to die. I saw mass graves.

Since 2003, people have left our village, until this day they can't go back. People can't leave the camps; there is no security in the region.

Why is the United Nations staying silent?

United Nations community love money, not people. Why did they go to Libya to fight? For oil and money. They don't come to Sudan even when the president is committing atrocities.

We, black people, are not treated as human. It seems like a bad dream but this is reality, a nightmare.

I was one year in jail in Sudan, these are my scars, you can see where they tortured me with hot water on my legs. After I was set free I had to come each week to sign in in order to not be killed, I ran away”.

(Anyonymous, February 2012)

An increased number of people from Sudan are being detained and threatened with deportation in Calais. At least another three Sudanese people have their court date this week. Their asylum claims are being fast-tracked with the outcome decided within days, without full examination of individual cases. If they are refused France will also attempt to deport them.

This is happening even despite a recent European Court of Human Rights judgement on 2nd February 2012 (ECHR: I. M. v. France) which ruled in favour of a Sudanese man who had previously been rejected asylum and faced deportation under the 'fast-track' procedure in detention in 2008.

The ECHR held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 13 (right to an affective remedy) taken together with Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights. [1]

“This decision is a reminder that states must under no circumstances send a person to his country if it has not been demonstrated, a complete and definitely, he/she will incur no risk,” reacted Amnesty International
France, ACAT France and Human Rights Watch, in a joint statement welcoming the decision of the Court. [2]

Yet for the Sudanese currently being held in Coquelles detention in Calais this fast-track procedure with threat of deportation is being applied.

France is also diverting deportations to Sudan via third countries and is applying to foreign companies in order to deport the Sudanese people. The reasons why are unclear but it is speculated it is doing this to avoid
opposition in France. People believe the most recent attempt to deport a man from Darfur was first attempted through a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, but after a connecting flight from Paris was cancelled due to airport strikes, they then attempted to deport him via the UK and Turkey but the airline refused to fly him.

Earlier this month the French authorities deported another Sudanese man detained in Calais, also transferring him via Frankfurt for the flight to Khartoum.

He was handcuffed, both hands and feet, and a bag placed over his head. In the airport they took him through a separate small door before the other passengers so no-one could see him. It is now unknown where he is.

For most people there are no reports of what happens to them once they are deported.

In 1999 a man deported from Frankfurt to Khartoum was killed by officers deporting him on a Lufthansa flight, “three Federal Border Guards (BGS) had abused the 30-year-old so brutally that he suffocated. The Border Guards had forced a full-face helmet onto his head, bound his hands and feet and forcefully pushed his head onto his knees during take off”. [3] Three BGS officers were sentenced with “bodily harm resulting in death” but only received nine months probation. [4]

In the UK in 2007 Darfuris who were deported to Khartoum were tortured after they returned [5]. One teenager from Darfur killed himself in the UK after being told he will be deported [6]. In 2009 Adam Osman Mohammed, a failed asylum seeker, was gunned down in front of his wife and children days after returning to Darfur following his deportation from the UK. [7]

Now, during the same month that France is deporting people to Sudan, the Sudanese government continues to commit mass atrocities persecuting, torturing and killing people all across Sudan. As documented by Human Rights Watch, in January this year, Sudan's rights recorded has 'deteriorated' and conflicts have 'proliferated' in the past year, 'with the eruption of new armed conflicts and crackdowns on students, rights advocates, and the media. [8]

In Darfur last Thursday 23rd February government forces indiscriminately attacked and beat villagers, looting and burning down homes and shops. [9]

Last week along the South border “Sudan’s military is carrying out a bombing campaign intended to shut down the main route for refugees fleeing violence in the country’s south”. [10]

At the beginning of February in South Sudan 78 people were massacred by uniformed armed men. [11]

Across the Nuba Mountains the Seattle Times report “a mass atrocity that has attracted little attention: Sudan's government starving, massacring, raping and bombing its people in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, all in hopes of crushing a rebel movement, and barring aid workers and journalists from the area in a largely successful effort to conceal savagery that has echoes of Darfur”. [12]

The Sudanese government is also cracking down on dissent in its capital city, Khartoum. Hundreds of students were arrested and beaten on Friday 17th February 2012 after student protests over rising prices, unemployment
and other issues. Some students are still missing. [13]

People in the pro-democracy movement have also been targeted. Many are in prison, subject to torture and ‘mock execution’ and also report people missing. In a press release issued on Thursday 9th February 2012 people from the pro-democracy group Girifna and ‘Youth for Change’ state they “will continue our struggle to put an end to the oppressive and inhumane Sudan national security act that gives the NISS the power to arrest, detain and torture all voices of dissent for extended periods of time”. [14]

The British Foreign Commonwealth Office summoned the Sudanese Embassy this month for the imprisonment and torture of Magdy el-Baghdady, a man from the UK who worked as a food vendor in Khartoum. El-Baghdady says “all men are tortured in Kober Prison... It is lucky I am able to have something done about it. Much worse happens to Sudanese people who may never have a chance to let others know”. [15]

France is a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which states in article 3 that no state "shall expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." In making such determinations, the authorities "shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights." [16]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees state Darfuris are at risk of torture and death if returned to the Sudanese capital.

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, has an international arrest warrant against him for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He is banned in France and the European Union. If he entered France he
would be arrested and taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The French government is now deporting people to Sudan despite its often-stated criticisms against atrocities committed by Sudan's government forces. If France is truly concerned about the people of Sudan, then it must stop deporting people back to a country where they face serious risk of persecution, torture and death.

ENDS

References:

[1]